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HEALING BY FAITH. 

TWO ESSAYS 

BY 

REV. SAMUEL L. GRACEY 

H 

AND 

REV. DANIEL STEELE. D. D. 



Delivered before the Boston Methodist Preachers' Meeting 
March 27th and April 3d, 1882. 






WILLARD TRACT REPOSITORY. 

Beacon Hill Place, Boston. 

239 Fourth Avenue, New. York. 

921 Arch St., Philadelphia. 

31 Paternoster Square, London. 



-ftM 00 



Copyright, 1882, 
By Charles Cullis. 



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PKEFACE. 



These essays were read before the 
Methodist Preachers' Meeting of Boston, 
and are published at my request. 

CHARLES CULLIS. 



HEALING BY FAITH. 

BY REV. SAMUEL L. GRACEY, 

Pastor Saratoga Street M. E. Church, Boston, Mass. 
Read before the Boston Methodist Preachers' Meeting, 
j March 27, 1882. 

My Brethren of the Boston Preachers' 
Meeting : — It is with no spirit of contro- 
versy or of the disputant who has a side 
to carry in debate that I approach the 
j consideration of the theme you have 
assigned to us. I feel as one who treads 
on holy ground, and I would take off my 
shoes and walk reverently and softly as 
we pursue our inquiries. 

I would gladly sit at your feet and 
receive any help you may be able to 
give that would bring me to right and 
true conclusions. Yet I have deep 
convictions that ought to be expressed 
to the glory of that God who has 



given me an experience of His heal- 
ing power in my own family. 

I think I see in the church of Christ 
to-day decided tendencies towards 
rationalism. There is such an indignant 
outcry on the part of skeptics against the 
miracles of the Bible, and such a manifest 
disposition to doubt any interference with 
the operations of natural and physical 
laws on the part of God in modern times, 
that we are really in great danger of 
having driven from us entirely, all faith 
in the supernatural. The cry of fanat- 
icism has been so raised against every one 
who has dared very positively to assert 
the fact of a supernatural life brought 
about by supernatural means that many 
Christians have been sneered out of the 
profession of their faith in a supernatural 
book, a supernatural being, and a super- 
natural life. 

When some simple-hearted, trusting 



soul arises in our conference meetings 
and proclaims in a specific manner some 
remarkable answer to prayer, tells of the 
direct power of God in awakening the 
soul or healing the body of some sick 
person, or some remarkable and manifest 
deliverance by the hand of God, how 
slow of heart to believe are many pro- 
fessed Christians, with what credulity 
such statements are received, and how 
many ways are found of explaining the 
matter by natural causes ! 

We must confess that the church of to- 
day is stripped of her greatest and mighti- 
est power through the fear of man, un- 
belief, and misunderstanding of the super- 
natural. She is too willing to depend 
upon secondary causes rather than upon 
the living God. It is so much easier to 
live after the flesh than after the Spirit. 

We fear to admit that there are direct 
spiritual interventions and miraculous 



interpositions of the Deity lest we be re- 
garded as fanatical. Why is it that so 
many in the church to-day still believe in 
the ability of God "to make bare his 
saving arm " in the matter of spiritual 
healing, which is the greater miracle in- 
somuch as the spiritual is above the 
physical, and yet are afraid to admit that 
God will commonly make bare his arm 
in a miracle of physical healing which is 
a much lighter work. 

Why should it be thought a thing in- 
credible that God should by direct inter- 
position of His power raise to health 
men and women diseased in body whom 
all natural remedies have failed to help. 

Has God laid aside any prerogatives 
of his power ? Does He still rule in this 
world of ours ? Has He built the world 
and established its laws in such fixed con- 
ditions that even He cannot or will not 
alter or annul them ? Then, indeed, has 



the created outgrown the creator; the 
engine has run away with the engineer. 
Dr. Jellet has said in his " Efficacy of 
Prayer," " You ask God to perform as real 
a miracle when you ask Him to cure 
a soul of sin as you do when you ask 
Him to cure a body of fever." 

When Luther and Wesley, each in his 
day, dug out from the rubbish of super- 
stition and formalism the truth of the 
wonder-working power of God over the 
spirit of man in the act of personal re- 
generation, it was regarded as no less 
strange than the direct display of God's 
power in physical healing is regarded to- 
day by many religious people. Neander 
calls tlie conversion of the soul "the 
standing miracle of the age/' but men 
who would expel all ideas of the super- 
natural from our religion insist that con- 
version is simply a development of 
man's better self, carried on by one's own 



effort until the better man rises up from 
the germ of goodness found in every 
heart. 

Such men treat all miracles with con- 
tempt ; the history of God's dealings in 
deliverance of his people by miracle at 
the Red Sea and from the plagues of 
Egypt, or the furnace fire, or the lion's 
den, or Jonah's wonderful history as the 
fervid imagery of early Oriental minds. 
They brush these all aside as beyond the 
range of reason, and hence as improbable, 
and even impossible and unworthy the 
credence of men of advanced thought 
and culture. 

This is no time for the unsolderjfig of 
our strongest and simplest faith in the 
Bible and its claim of miracle-working 
power in the spiritual and physical 
realms, 

Let us see to it that our souls be not 
gathered with the unbelieving, and we lose 



the faith and power once committed to the 
saints. Let us be careful lest by our 
God-dishonoring doubts we compel the 
entry to be made in the great doomsday 
book, concerning our time and country, 
11 He could not do many mighty works 
among them because of their unbelief." 

Why should it be thought a thing in- 
credible to-day that God should perform 
those supernatural works of healing 
which have marked the course of His 
dealing with men through all former 
ages of which we have any record ? 

From the days of Moses, God has re- 
vealed himself as the Healer, distinctively 
and specifically. Let us look into the 
record of God's dealing with the race in 
this matter. 

In the law given through Moses He 
established sanitary regulations for the 
preservation of health, and also gave 
special promises of preservation from 
disease. 



Read Exodus xv : 26: " I make for 
you this day a statute and an ordinance. 
If thou wilt hearken diligently unto the 
voice of the Lord thy God, and will do 
that which is right in His sight, and will 
give ear to His commandments, and keep 
His statutes, I will put none of the dis- 
eases upon thee which I brought upon 
the Egyptians, for I am Jehovah Rophi" 
or Healer. He has been Jehovah Rophi 
ever since that day to such as fulfil these 
conditions. 

In Numbers xi. there is a very positive 
statement of the application of the above 
law, written by Moses. When the peo- 
ple murmured against God he sent a 
destroying fire into the camp, which, when 
the people saw, they repented, and Moses 
plead for them, and the fire was stayed. 
The mixed multitude that had accompa 
nied Israel from Egypt still lusted for 
Egypt's vile dainties and infected the 



13 

people with their vain desires, when God 
gave them over to the gratification of 
their fleshly desires, and they were sur- 
' felted with fatness until they brought 
upon themselves great plagues, and many 
fell before their lusts, until the name of 
that place was v called Kibroth-hcttaavah, 
that is, the graves of lust. 

Miriam's envy and jealousy was pun- 
ished with leprosy, and she was only 
recovered through the prayer of Moses. 
Numbers xii. 

Again, when the people of Israel re- 
belled against God, and fiery serpents 
were sent among them in judgment, as 
the whip of scorpions of the Almighty, 
how were they recovered from their 
malady ? Simply by prayer and faith 
through an apparently utterly-inadequate 
medium that God might be glorified, — 
the serpent of brass and the look of 
faith. There was a great faith-cure 



14 

institution opened in the camp of Israel 
that day. 

In the days of King David the Lord's 
hand was acknowledged in miracles of 
healing. In Psalms ciii : 2, 5, " Bless the 
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His 
benefits ; who forgiveth all thine iniquities 
and healeth all thy diseases ; who re- 
deemeth thy life from destruction, * # # 
so that thy youth is renewed like the 
eagle's." 

Psalms xxx : 2. "O Lord, my God, I 
cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me. 
O Lord, Thou hast brought up my soul 
from the grave, Thou hast kept me alive 
that I should not go down into the pit." 

The story of faith cure, wrought by the 
power of God, flames before the church 
in the history of Naaman, the Syrian gen- 
eral. A little captive maid calls his at- 
tention to Jehovah Rophi and he resorts 
to Him and is cured. 



i5 

But time fails us to tell of Hezekiah to 
whom the Lord added fifteen years of 
life in answer to the prayer of faith. Of 
Asa, Isaiah, David, Solomon, Job, and a 
great cloud of witnesses in the Old and 
New Testament Scriptures. 

Solomon prayed at the consecration of 
the temple in Jerusalem, the place where 
men should specially appear before God 
in worship and prayer, that it may be a 
place of healing also. " Whatsoever sore 
or whatsoever sickness there be : then 
what prayer or supplication soever shall 
be made of any man, or of all thy people 
Israel, then hear Thou from heaven Thy 
dwelling place, and forgive." 2 Chron. vi : 
28, 30. To which Jehovah answers, " I 
have heard thy prayer and thy supplica- 
tion that thou hast made before me, 
I have hallowed this house to put my 
name there forever. If I shut up heaven, 
or if I send pestilence among my people, 



i6 

if my people humble themselves, and 
pray, and seek my face, and turn from 
their wicked ways then I will hear 
from heaven,, and will forgive their sin 
and will heal their land." 2 Chron. vii : 

In New Testament times the work of 
healing formed a very important part of 
the daily work of the Lord Jesus, and de- 
parting He gave commission to his disci- 
ples for all time and to the uttermost 
parts of the earth, saying, " Greater works 
than these shall ye do because I go unto 
my Father," but " Lo, I am with you 
alway" and "All power is given unto me 
in heaven and on earth." 

The gift of healing is mentioned in 1 
Corinth, xii : 9, 28, as separate and dis- 
tinct from miracles, the latter term being 
commonly used to indicate other signs or 
wonders which were given in confirma- 
tion of inspiration, the gift of healing 



J 7 

being a much more ordinary and perma- 
nent gift in the church. 

In Acts xxviii, there is given the ac- 
count of the healing of the father of Pub- 
lius who lay sick of a fever and a bloody 
flux, to whom Paul entered in, and prayed 
and laid his hands on him, and healed 
him. " So when this was done others also 
which had diseases in the island came 
and were healed." 

The healing of the lame man who lay 
at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, 
" Who seeing Peter and John about to gc 
into the temple asked of them alms. 
Peter said, ' Silver and gold have I none, 
but such as I have give I thee ; in the 
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up 
and walk,' and he took him -by the right 
hand, and lifted him up, and immediately 
his feet and ankle bones received strength, 
and he, leaping up, stood, and walked, and 
entered with them into the temple, walk- 



i8 

ing, and leaping, and praising God." 
Acts, iii: 6-9. See accounts of other 
healings by Peter in Acts ix : 33, 34- 
"And Peter said to Eneas who had kept 
his bed eight years, ' Eneas, Jesus Christ 
maketh thee whole : arise ! ' and he arose 
immediately." 

Read also Acts v : 14, 16, and heal- 
ing by Philip in Samaria, Acts viii : 5, 8, 
and Ananias restoring sight to the blind, 
Acts ix: 17, 18, and how Paul healed 
the sick, Acts xiv: 8-10, and cast out 
devils, Acts xvi : 16-18. 

Is not all this in accord with the prom- 
ise of the Lord Jesus, in Mark xvi : 17 ? 
" And these signs shall follow them 
that believe : in my name shall they cast 
out devils, they shall speak with new 
tongues, they shall take up serpents, and 
if they drink any deadly thing it shali 
not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
the sick, and they shall recover." 



J 9 

Mark the connection in which this 
passage occurs; that familiar command 
preceaes it, "Go ye into all the world 
and preach this gospel to every creature . 
he that believeth, and is baptized, shall 
be saved, and he that believeth not shall 
be damned." There we stop, but why ? 
Is there no comfort in the promise that 
follows those words that we can in any 
measure apply to our needs ? the prom- 
ise following is supposed to be limited to 
the apostolic age to confirm their author- 
ity and revelation, but where have we any 
indication that the power should ever 
cease in the church until this gospel is 
preached to every creature ? 

Others assume that the age of miracles 
is past, the cannon of Scripture being 
closed miracles are no longer needed to 
confirm it. But is that the only cause for 
the performance of such supernatural 
works as healing the sick and other mi- 
raculous demonstrations ? 



When did these powers cease in the 
church ? Not in the days of the Apos- 
tles, neither in that of their immediate 
successors. Very specific directions were 
given by James to the church in regard to 
the treatment of disease, James v : 14, 15, 
k 'Is any man sick among you? let him 
call for the elders of the church, and let 
them pray over him, anointing him with 
oil in the name of the Lord, and the pray- 
er of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord 
shall raise him up ; and if he have commit- 
ted sins they shall be forgiven him." 

Among the Fathers, this law was com- 
monly observed. Justin Martyr says in 
his day, " Numberless demoniacs through- 
out the whole world and in your city, 
many of our Christian men exorcising 
them in the name of Jesus Christ, who 
was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have 
healed, and do heal, though they could not 
be cured by those who used incantations 
and drugs." 



Irenceus says: "Wherefore also those 
who are in truth the disciples, receiving 
grace from Him, do in His name perform 
miracles so as to promote the welfare of 
others, according to the gift which each 
has received from Him. . . . Others 
still heal the sick by laying their hands 
upon them and they are made whole." 

Tertullian says : " Many men of rank, 
to say nothing of the common people, 
have been delivered from devils and 
healed of diseases." 

Origen says by the simple means of 
prayer, and in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, "We have seen many persons freed 
from grievous calamities, and from dis- 
tractions of mind, and madness, and 
countless other ills, which could be cured 
neither by men or devils." 

Clement, in giving directions for visiting 
the sick, says : " Let them therefore with 
fasting and prayer make their inter- 



cession, * * * as men who have received 
the gift of healing confidently to the glory 
of God. 

Mosheim says it had not ceased in the 
14th century. Dr. Marshall, the trans- 
lator of Cyprian, says : " There are suc- 
cessive evidences of their continuance 
down to the age of Constantine." 

Then religion became fosilized in dead 
forms, and vital godliness like to have 
died out of the earth. This power, with 
nearly all other supernatural movements, 
suffered a deep eclipse. 

The Waldensian Christians revived 
faith in God and a spiritual religion in- 
stead of lifeless forms, and they soon dug 
out of the rubbish of years this gem of 
faith, and announced : " We hold it as 
an article of faith, and profess sincerely 
from the heart, that sick persons, when 
they ask it, may be anointed with oil by 
one who joins with them in prayer, that it 



23 

may be efficacious to the healing of the 
body according to the design, end, and 
effect mentioned by the Apostles, and we 
profess that such an anointing performed 
according to the apostolic design will be 
healing and profitable." 

Zinzendorf, among the Moravians, says : 
" To believe against hope is the root of 
the gift of miracles, and I give this 
testimony to our beloved church, that 
apostolic powers are there manifested. 
We have undeniable proofs, # # # in the 
healing of maladies in themselves in- 
curable, such as cancers and consumption, 
when the patient was in the agonies of 
death, *. * # all by means of prayer or 
of a single word." 

Of 1730 he says: "At this juncture 
various supernatural gifts were manifest- 
ed in the church, and miraculous cures 
were wrought," etc. 

Rev. A. Bost, in his history of the 



24 

Moravians, gives a very remarkable case 
of instantaneous cure of a lady who was 
supposed to be dying, and whose life was 
prolonged thirty-five years in answer to 
prayer offered by Jean de Watterville. 

Numberless cases are certified to by 
the Scotch Covenanters, under Kirk, 
Knox, Wishart, Livingston, Robert Bruce, 
and others, all holy men of God, and 
giants in their day in the Church of God. 

Of Robert Bruce, who was eminent for 
holiness and prevailing prayer, it is re- 
corded : " Persons distracted, and those 
who were past recovery from sickness, 
were brought to him, and were, after 
prayer by him on their behalf, restored 
from their malady." 

The case of Luther praying for and re- 
ceiving the prolonging of the life of Philip 
Melancthon is so familiar that it needs 
only to be mentioned. 

Myconius was in the last stage of con- 



25 

sumption, and was raised up through pre- 
vailing prayer, and wrote of himself : 
" Raised up in the year 15 41, by the man- 
dates' prayers and letters of the reverend 
Father Luther, from death." 

Richard Baxter bears positive tes- 
timony concerning the same power as in 
the church in his day. " How many 
times have I known the prayer of faith to 
save the sick when all physicians have 
given them up as dead. It has been my 
case more than once or twice, or ten 
times, when means have failed and the 
highest art of reason has sentenced me 
hopeless, yet have I been relieved by the 
prevalency of fervent prayer." 

Bengel says : " The gift of healing 
seems to have been given by God that it 
might always remain in the church as a 
specimen of the other gifts. O happy 
simplicity, interrupted or lost only through 
unbelief." 



26 

Dr. Bushnell thinks a denial of present 
day miracles would imperil all his argu- 
ments for the supernatural, and in his 
book, "Nature and the Supernatural," 
gives many remarkable cases of cure in 
direct and immediate answer to prayer. 

Our own Methodist biography is rich 
with displays of faith and power of God 
in this particular. See Dr. Benson's 
journal concerning the wonderful cure of 
Ann Mather, who had not been able to 
walk for many years, and was instantly 
cured while prayer was being made in 
her behalf. 

Rev. James McDonald, the biographer 
of Benson, and who followed him in 
prayer on the occasion referred to, says : 
" All present believed that the power to 
walk, which she received in an instant, 
was communicated by an immediate act 
of omnipotence." The account may be 
found in the London Methodist Magazi7ie. 



2 7 

I can only refer to the scores of per- 
sons, even hundreds, who have been 
cured by God in answer to the prayers of 
Dorothea Trudel. Get the record of her 
life work, as published by Dr. Cullis. 

Pastor Rein, of Switzerland, presents 
in his life and work, a true picture of an 
apostolic character and apostolic power, 
specially in the work of healing. He re- 
nounced all human means in illness, yet 
never blamed others for resorting to 
drugs. 

The case of Miss Faircourt of London, 
daughter of an English clergyman, whose 
case is reported in Mrs. Oliphant's " Life 
of Edward Irving/' is a most striking case. 

Dr. Boardman, in his book, " The Great 
Physician," p. 15, gives an account of 
the cure of a broken arm in answer to 
prayer. 

A friend of Dr. Boardman, a Dr. R — , 
of Philadelphia, in response to his re- 



28 

quest, gave him this account of the cure 
of his little son : — 

He said : I do not speak of it to 
people generally — they are so unbeliev- 
ing — but I can tell you. My little son 
fell and broke both bones of the arm 
below the elbow. My brother, who is a 
professor of surgery in the college at 
Chicago, was here on a visit, set and 
dressed the arm. The next day the dear 
boy came to me, saying, " Dear papa, 
please take off these things," meaning 
the splints and bandages. " Oh, no, my 
son, you will have these things five or 
six weeks before it will be well." " Why, 
papa, it is well." "Oh, no, my child, 
that is impossible." " Why, papa, you 
believe in prayer, don't you ? " " You 
know I do, my son." " Well, last night, 
when I went to bed, it hurt me very bad, 
and I asked Jesus to make it well, and He 
did make it well, and it is well." I did 



2 9 

not like to say a word to chill his faith. 
A happy thought came to me, and I said, 
" My dear child, your uncle put the 
things on, and if they are taken off he 
must do it." Away he went to his uncle, 
who told him he would have to go as he 
was for six or seven weeks, and he must 
be very patient, and when the little 
fellow told him that Jesus had made him 
well, he said, " Pooh ! pooh ! nonsense ! " 
and sent him away. The next morning 
the poor boy came to me again and 
plead with so much sincerity and con- 
fidence that I more than half believed he 
was really healed, and went to my brother 
and said, " Had you not better undo his 
arm and let him see for himself ? then he 
will be satisfied." My brother yielded, 
took off the bandages and the splints, 
and exclaimed, " It is well ; absolutely 
well! " and hastened to the door for air to 
keep from fainting. Dr. Boardman gives 



3o 

many other cases of cure that came 
under his own notice, and many in 
answer to his own prayers. 

Two volumes are already published by 
Dr. Charles Cullis, M.D., of Boston, con- 
taining accounts and testimonials of 
cures performed through faith in the pro- 
visions laid down in James v. He has 
honored God in all things, and these un- 
disputed witnesses have put on record 
their story of the healing power of God. 
Scores, probably hundreds, of other 
cases unreported are none the less true, 
and should be given to the world that 
the people may know that there is a God 
in Israel who hears and answers prayer 
and yet binds Himself to man by His 
ancient covenant promise. 

In most cases, the cures have ' been 
instantaneous, in many gradual, but in 
all, without resort to any medicine. 

The case of Miss Jennie Smith I can 



3 1 

only mention in outline. It is such a re- 
markable and clearly miraculous cure that 
I recommend everybody interested in 
this subject to read the full account of 
her utterly helpless condition for about 
sixteen years, and the cure wrought so 
wonderfully, as published by her in the 
book, " From Baca to Beulah." It can 
be obtained at the Willard Tract Society, 
Beacon Hill. 

Many brethren before me know of the 
remarkable deliverance from disease of a 
very subtle and aggravated character in 
my own family. 

Mrs. Gracey was for four years in poor 
health, — much of the time only able to 
be about the house a few hours of each 
day; most of the time confined to her 
bed or couch, suffering acute pain and 
constant discomfort. She applied to sev- 
eral physicians in the eastern and western 
part of the State, but was not helped. 



32 

For a year she was at one of the best 
sanitariums in New York State, returning 
home at intervals for a brief time. 

On coming to our present charge in 
Boston, it seemed almost impossible for 
her to be absent from home, and for 
many months she grew worse, until we 
were almost in despair of her ever being 
much better. A friend, visiting us from 
Washington, D.C., requested Mrs. Gracey 
to accompany her in a visit to Dr. Cullis, 
that he might pray with her for her re- 
covery from an affection of the throat 
which unfitted her for public speaking. 
Mrs. G. consented, but on the day ap- 
pointed was much worse than usual ; and 
though scarcely able to move from her 
bed, felt anxious to comply with the 
great desire of her friend and visitor. . I 
obtained a carriage, and accompanied 
them to the office of Dr. Cullis, and left 
them there. 



33 

While our friend was in the private 
office of the Doctor, she referred to Mrs. 
G.'s case, and said she would like to 
have him pray for her. This he con- 
sented to do ; and on their return to the 
parlor asked Mrs. G. if she desired to 
see him in regard to her case- She re- 
plied : " Well, I hardly know, Doctor. I 
came here with my friend, and had not 
expressed any desire in regard to myself 
however ; yet I should like to talk to you 
about my case." On passing to the inner 
office, he asked Mrs. G., " Do you desire 
me to prescribe for you ? " (The Doctor 
is a regular physician, with a large prac- 
tice.) "Oh, no, Doctor, I don't want 
any more medicine. I've taken enough 
medicine to cure or* kill almost any 
woman." " Then would you like to have 
me pray with you for your healing ? n 
"Well, I don't know, Doctor, whether I 
do or not. The fact is, I have rather 



34 

prided myself on being a plain, matter-of- 
fact sort of a woman, not given to any 
fanatical notions ; and I don't know that 
I believe in this way of healing ; and I 
don't know that I would be willing to be 
healed in this way. I think I don't be- 
lieve in what are called ' Faith cures.' ' ? 
"You believe the Bible, however, don't 
you, Mrs. Gracey ? " " Yes, I believe the 
Bible, and I believe in the days of His flesh 
Jesus performed many miracles of heal- 
ing; but I have been taught to believe 
that the days of miracles were confined 
to the Apostles, and were special powers 
given for a special purpose." So they 
talked over all the difficulties that she 
presented ; such as, it being the will of 
the Lord that she> should be an invalid 
all her life that she might glorify Him in 
patient submission to His will ; and many 
other things. He continued, however, to 
hold her to the direct promise of God, 



35 

made through James to the Church, until 
every objection was met and swept away; 
and she came up to the ground of a will- 
ingness to be healed in this way, if it was 
the Lord's will ; then to a readiness to 
ask and expect God to heal her now. 
They then knelt in prayer, — the Doctor 
leading in a very quiet, simple, child-like 
prayer or talk with God all about this 
case. He laid each difficulty of the case 
out before God ; also of l>er work in the 
Church, and how desirable that she 
should have health to perform it. And 
whilst they prayed together he said : 
"And now, O Lord, according to Thy 
command by Thy servant James, I anoint 
her in the name of the Father and the 
Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen." 

Immediately she felt the work was 
done ; arose from her knees and said 
very quietly, yet very positively: "Doc- 
tor, I'm healed." He responded : 
t5 ' Traise God, from whom all blessings flow.' 



3& 

" Now, remember, Mrs. Gracey, no more 
medicines ; throw away all mechanical 
helps ; use no more medicines ; trust all 
the time in God." 

She was enabled to walk to Tremont 
Street, where the ladies took the cars for 
home ; and from that day to this has 
been entirely free from all trouble from 
that virulent and terrible disease, which 
was so rapidly destroying her health and 
usefulness. 

* It was the Lord's doing, and was mar- 
vellous in our eyes. I cannot enter into 
the particulars of her trouble, but have 
no more doubt than I have of my exis- 
tence that her cure was by the direct in- 
tervention of the Jehovah Rophi. 

Over eighteen months have passed 
since that glad day, and not a single 
symptom of her former trouble has re- 
turned to her, and her health in that time 
has been equal to that of any other period 



37 

of her life. She is to-day a well woman, 
giving God all the glory of her cure. 

But I have already detained you too 
long. I can only say in the few minutes 
remaining to me, that I believe we tie up 
the Almighty by our unbelief. Why con- 
fine Him to one way of operating to heal 
the bodies of men in these modern times ? 
Where in the Bible are we commanded 
to go to the physicians for healing ? Yet 
in many places we are directed to pray 
and be healed. 

Why are we so persistent in our haste 
to depend upon second causes rather 
than go to God ? How little faith for im- 
mediate help of the Mighty to save, and 
how great dependence upon the means ! 
When God gives us His plan for the treat- 
ment of the body, why not go in His 
might in this event as well as in our 
spiritual needs. Read again James's di - 
rection: "Is any among you sick," etc. 



3« 

"Oh, that's foolish presumption," say- 
many. Presumption ! What makes it 
presumption, but the long reign of God- 
dishonoring doubt in the Church ? What 
but custom and unbelief ? God will honor 
this faith without any secondary means, 
that He may be glorified, just as He hon- 
ored the faith of Gideon, or of Joshua 
before Jericho, and hundreds of others 
before the rationalists of their day. The 
miserable rationalism of to-day would 
have utterly spoiled that victory of Jeri- 
cho, or the triumph of Gideon, and the 
deliverance from Egypt under Moses. 

The question is asked, why are not all 
cured that go to God in this way ? I can- 
not, in the time allowed us for this dis- 
cussion, answer this and many other 
questions that arise as I would like to. 
I can only give briefly these three rea- 
sons : — 

First. Unbelief, — sometimes culpa- 



39 

ble; often not. The discussion of the 
question of faith in this matter as a spe- 
cial gift of God will be presented by Dr. 
Steele, who is to follow me in this discus- 
sion. 

Second. Many are not cured, because 
God has some better thing for them than 
mere bodily healing. Chastisement, en- 
durance of suffering, that the power of 
grace to sustain in affliction may be 
shown to the glory of God ; or that the 
utter hopelessness of recovery by ordi- 
nary means may be demonstrated, that 
all may know the power of healing to 
be eventually with God. To some God 
says, " I have chosen thee in the fur- 
nace of affliction," until the sufferer may 
be able to reply with triumph in the 
flames : " Even so, Father, for so it seem- 
eth good in Thy sight." 

Third. " It is appointed unto man 
once to die." When God sees fit to call 



4o 

us from labor to reward, we will not, and 
our friends will not, have the power to 
exercise faith for our recovery. 

Why anoint with oil ? I know of no 
reason other than that given by Dr. Gor- 
don in his beautiful treatment of this 
subject in his book, "The Ministry of 
Healing," wherein he expresses the be- 
lief that it is a simple test of obedience. 



HEALING BY FAITH. 

BY DANIEL STEELE, D. D. 

I have been invited to speak on the 
faith cure and I shall speak on the ex- 
traordinary gifts of the Spirit, or charis- 
mata, described in the twelfth chapter of 
first Corinthians. I will read : " To an- 
other faith by the same spirit ; to another 
the gift of healing." The "faith cure" 
covers the two gifts lying side by side 
in this description of the extraordinary 
gifts of the Spirit. 

Christianity is the only religion on 
earth based upon miracles. Many other 
religions have pretended miracles which 
they produce, but they do not rest upon 
them as their foundation. Modern 
English writers, beginning with Cole- 
ridge, have slighted miracles, laying great 



42 

stress upon internal evidence and ignor- 
ing the external. 

This depreciation of external miracles 
came from Germany, a country which 
has become too learned to believe in 
Jesus Christ in the simple trust of the 
believing soul. Thus it has come to 
pass that very good men regard the 
supernatural in Christianity as a burden 
to be carried rather than wings by which 
it may be carried through the world. It 
is a very important question, How long 
were miracles designed to accompany 
the gospel ? It is the common opinion 
that the supernatural was needed only in 
the beginning of Christianity to give it a 
good start and that its subsequent prog- 
ress would be on the plane of nature. 
That is to say, Christianity was wound 
up like an eight-day clock and its author 
is standing by with his arms folded to see 
the thing run. But reasoning a priori. 



43 

we would say that a scheme originating 
miraculously would continue to be super- 
natural to the end. When we look in 
the New Testament we see no hint of 
withdrawal of the supernatural, but rather 
a prediction of its perpetual presence in 
the church. " He that believeth on me, 
the works that I do shall he do also ; and 
greater works than these shall he do ; 
because I go unto my father." John xiv : 
14. It is a common idea that God can- 
not work miracles through the faith of 
believers as in former times ; but Christ 
has said, "Lo, I am with you alvvay 
even unto the end of the world,' 7 He 
had just said, " All power is given unto 
me in heaven and in earth." Hence the 
natural inference is that He is still 
present as an omnipotent power putting 
forth supernatural energies in every fu- 
ture exigency of the church or of the indi- 
vidual believer. 



44 

If it is said that the manifested pres- 
ence of Jesus is to be expected only in 
religious experience in the invisible realm 
of the spirit, regenerating and sanctify- 
ing the soul, but not in supernatural inter- 
positions in the course of external nature, 
we immediately ask your authority for 
denying the external and admitting the 
internal evidences of the power of Christ. 
When I relate to a Roman Catholic my 
Christian experience, that, without a 
priest to absolve, I have, through the 
spirit of adoption, the joyful assurance 
abiding in my consciousness that I am a 
child of God, he stares at what he calls 
fanaticism in me and says the conscious 
contact of the Holy Spirit with my spirit 
is impossible in these latter days, and 
that it was shut up in the age of the Apos- 
tles, that the supernatural in the internal 
realm of experience, as well as the exter- 
nal world, ceased 1800 years ago. Has 



45 

not the Papist as good ground for say- 
ing this as the Protestant has for saying 
that the supernatural was limited to the 
apostolic age ? " But " says the Protest- 
ant, " I believe in regeneration and in a 
conscious indwelling of the Holy Spirit ; 
but when it comes to healing power and 
these external evidences, I cannot believe 
them." Ought not the same world that 
that is exhorted to believe the testimony 
to Christ's saving grace, also to believe 
the same persons when they attest his 
ability to heal ? Let us be as willing to , 
accept one side as the other. We cannot 
surrender one-half of the supernatural 
and retain the other half. The notion 
that miracles ceased wtih the Apostles is 
attended by many serious difficulties. 
The testimony of the early Christian 
writers, such as Tertullian, Justin Martyr, 
Irenaeus, Origen, and others is regarded 
as an invincible proof of the existence of 



4 6 

the books of the New Testament in the 
second and third centuries as the uni- 
versally accepted standards of Christian 
truth. But the same witnesses as author- 
itatively testify to the existence of mira- 
cles in their times. What is to be done 
with these testimonies ? Shall we call 
them true when we wish to prove the 
truth of the New Testament, and brand 
them as false when we wish to rid our- 
selves of the post-apostolic miracles ! 
And if we admit that they are true, if 
they outlived the apostolic age and oc- 
curred two hundred years after the close 
of the New Testament canon, can we say 
they have ceased to exist up to the present 
time ? Then if you admit that they were 
wrought at that time for other purposes 
than the authentication of a revelation of 
Divine truth, how can we retain these 
as true miracles and reject those which 
have been performed all down through 



47 

the course of the Church's later history? 
How can I accept the miracle of the heal- 
ing of the woman who touched the hem 
of Christ's garment in Capernaum and re- 
ject the indubitable testimony relating to 
the healing of Jennie Smith in Philadel- 
phia, a few years ago, or of Miss Fan- . 
court in London ? The latter was a 
cripple, bed-ridden, with a curved spine, 
a painful disorder of almost all the joints 
of her body, who for two years had been 
lying on a couch, padded and curved to 
suit her distorted form. Mr. Graves calls 
to discuss the subject of faith healing with 
her, her father, a member of the church of 
England, dissents and leaves the room, 
Mr. Graves rises and is apparently about 
to go out also, but instead of that he 
turns to the helpless cripple and says " I 
command you to rise up and walk ! " It 
is probable that the command was in the 
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. She im- 



48 

mediately arose and walked, having every 
appearance of perfect health, and so con- 
tinued. But notwithstanding all the well 
authenticated instances of healing, we 
are told by even evangelical Christians 
that, " we must believe anything rather 
than a miracle." 

It is the teaching of Hume that " it is 
contrary to general experience that mira- 
cles should exist ; it is not contrary to 
general experience that testimony should 
be false." We defy any one to deny the 
instances of healing which have occurred 
within the past ten years in Europe and 
America, without assuming Hume's infi- 
del position against miracles. It is 
astonishing how the belief that the super- 
natural was manifested only at the be- 
ginning of the Gospel has influenced the 
definition of the term miracle until it is 
almost universally defined to be super- 
natural power exercised to authenticate a 



49' 

revelation. Thus many theologians have 
begged the question of the continuance 
of miracles by their definition. Dr. Pope, 
the Wesleyan theologian, constructs a 
better definition ; " A miracle is the in- 
terposition of the Supreme power in the 
established order of nature." Miracles 
may be helpful in every age. God has 
not put an impassable gulf between the 
natural and the supernatural, as many 
earnest Christians imagine, but rather the 
supernatural lies close above the natural, 
and often dips down into it for the pur- 
pose of securing some moral or spiritual 
end. Says Dr. Bushnell, "there are 
probably some religious teachers who 
would even think it a disorder in God's 
realm itself if now, in these modern times, 
these days of Science and well graduated 
uniformity of things were to be disturbed 
by an irruption of miraculous demonstra- 
tions." It would upset many whole chap- 
ters of theory ! 



5° 

On the other hand, Archbishop Tillot- 
son believed that miracles would be man- 
ifested in case of an attempt to evange- 
lize pagan nations. We know that men 
are weak and prone to abuse any good 
gift and run it into the ground by extrav- 
agances, excesses and fanaticisms. For 
even the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit 
were even in St. Paul's day mixed up with 
various extravagances. Hence the history 
of the church has been a continual os- 
cillation between dead ritualism on the 
one hand and wild Corinthian ism on the 
other. Here is the picture of a church 
on which was bestowed in extraordinary 
measure the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. 
" Wrangling over Paul and Apollos and 
Cephas, running after false teachers, full 
of envying strife, and division, harboring 
an incestuous person, without discipline, 
degrading the Lord's Supper into a feast 
of appetite, giving to Paul constant sor- 



row and anxiety, the Corinthians needed 
miracles to give them a respectable name ; 
and they so abused miraculous gifts by 
jealousy and contention that they turned 
their Sabbath assemblies into cabals of 
men and women shouting, singing, pray- 
ing, prophesying, pell mell, without order 
or decency." Such a church is not de- 
sirable, but I choose it rather than one 
at the opposite extreme of rationalism, 
floating on the dead sea of formalism. 
From church history we learn that there 
have been gifts of healing in all ages 
breaking out at intervals. 

The past decade has been marked by 
such manifestations. 

There have been within the past few 
years miracles of healing corresponding 
in all points with the gifts and wonders 
of the apostolic age. Going back two or 
three centuries in the history of Scotland, 
we encounter the wonders detailed in the 



book entitled "The Scotch Worthies." 
And the men that figure in these gifts, 
powers, prophecies, healings, and visible 
judgments, are great names of repute in 
their own country, such as Knox, Guth- 
rie, Welch, Erskine, Craig, Cameron, 
Davidson, and Simpson. Similar wonders 
are well attested among the Huguenots, 
after the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes. 

George Fox, the founder of the Society 
of the Friends, wrought astonishing works 
of healing. The lame were made whole, 
the diseased were restored, even those 
given up by physicians. Nor has Meth- 
odism been without instances of super- 
natural healing. Some of us have heard 
from the lips of our sainted father, A. D. 
Merrill, whose marble is smiling upon us 
from the walls of this hall, instances of 
instantaneous cures which occurred in 
his ministry, in answer to prayer. 



53 

We do not say that the healing of the 
sick is the result of ordinary faith in God, 
but rather of an extraordinary faith in- 
wrought by the Holy Spirit for this spe- 
cific purpose. We believe that the in- 
stances of the gift of faith would be mul- 
tiplied if all Christians were lifted to a 
higher plane. Even then there would be 
fluctuations, the Spirit sometimes bestow- 
ing and sometimes withholding. For 
aught that we know, there may be a great 
display of spiritual gifts and wonders 
when Christianity comes into deadly 
struggle with Judaism, Mohammedanism 
and other antagonists to Jesus Christ. 
Then will He openly triumph over them. 

This matter of faith-cure embraces two 
charisms, or extraordinary gifts of the 
Spirit, found side by side in St. Paul's 
enumeration in i Cor. xii. This gift of 
faith must be discriminated from the 
grace of faith. 



54 

The following are some points of dif- 
ference between these two kinds of faith. 

This faith is something very different 
from the grace of faith. We note the 
following points : — 

i. The grace of faith is morally oblig- 
atory upon every soul having a knowl- 
edge of Christ, and the absence of such 
faith is the ground of condemnation. 

2. The gift of faith is not required of 
any one, but is sovereignly bestowed by 
the Holy Spirit, " severally as He will." 
This is called by the theologian s fides mi- 
raculosa (Matt, xvii : 20), or miracle-work- 
ing faith, in distinction from saving faith. 
Meyer styles it " a heroism of faith." 

3. There is no more culpability for the 
absence of the gift of faith than there is 
for that of the gift of tongues or of mira 
cles. 

4. The grace of faith is grounded on 
the Bible, while the gift of faith does not 



55 

rest on the written Word of God, but 
upon the revelation of the Holy Spirit 
made immediately to the human spirit. 

5. This testimony may relate to future 
events, when it is called prophecy : " Let 
us prophesy according to the measure of 
faith ; " or it may be an inwrought con- 
viction that in answer to prayer a certain 
sick person will be healed. "Faith" 
and " the gifts of healing " are in juxta- 
position in St. Paul's catalogue of char- 
isms. "The prayer of (charismatic) 
faith shall save the sick," says St. James. 

6. The grace of faith, when exercised 
in prayer, is always accompanied by the 
condition " If it be Thy will." The gift 
of faith is the assurance beforehand that 
it is God's will to bestow the thing de- 
sired. Hence those who have experience 
in the charism of faith for healing — the 
speaker has no such experience — say 
that there is no if in this kind of prayer. 



56 

It is an unconditional grasping, not of 
the written promise, but of God himself. 

7. The grace of faith is a permanent 
habit, as indispensable to spiritual as 
breathing is to natural life. Faith as a 
charism is occasional, and not permanent. 
St. Paul sometimes had it, and could 
heal (Acts xxviii : 8), and sometimes he 
had it not and could not heal, as we infer 
from 2 Tim. iv : 20. The charism of 
faith is not requisite to the highest spirit- 
ual life, nor to even the lowest stage, 
any more than speaking with tongues or 
miracles. 

8. The grace of faith is saving ; the 
charism is not saving. The former works 
by love and purifies the heart. The 
latter may exist without effecting any 
moral transfiguration of character. In 
support of this startling assertion we 
quote 1 Cor. xiii : 2 to the Greek scholar, 
calling his special attention to the v "act 



57 

that the form of this conditional sentence 
(ean with the subjunctive) assumes the 
condition (charismatic faith without love) 
as possible, with some present expectation 
that it may be realized. (See the Greek 
grammars.) Jesus Christ strongly hints 
at the same possibility in Matt, vii : 22, 
23. Balaam and Saul may be quoted as 
instances of unregenerate men receiving 
the divine afflatus of prophecy without 
moral transformation. 

When Paul was on the island called 
Melita and the serpent fastened itself 
upon his hand no harm came to him. 
u And in the same quarters were posses- 
sions of the chief man of the island, whose 
name was Publius," who received them 
and lodged them three days. And the 
father of Publius was sick of a fever. 
Paul entered in and prayed and laid his 
hands upon him and healed him. " So 
when this was done, others also, which 



58 

had diseases in the island, came and 
were healed." 

So Paul healed the sick. 

That sometimes he could not heal those 
who were sick we infer from another 
passage in the epistles, which reads as 
follows : " Erastus abode at Corinth : 
but Trophimus have I left at Miletum 
sick." Why did'nt he heal him and 
bring him along ? (Laughter.) Because 
the gift of faith for his healing was not 
then bestowed. St. Paul had not any 
"supernumerary preachers." He need- 
ed every one in the ever-widening har- 
vest field of the Gospel and he certainly 
would have healed this disabled laborer 
if he had been able. 

The gift of faith may sometimes be 
bestowed without any corresponding 
growth in grace or without affecting any 
moral renovation of character. Jesus 
Christ strongly suggests the same possi- 



59 

bility in the sermon on the mount, Matt, 
vii: 22, 23, "Many will say unto me in 
that day, Lord, Lord, have we not proph- 
esied in Thy name ? and in Thy name 
have cast out devils ? and in Thy name 
done many wonderful works ? And then 
will I profess unto them, I never knew 
you : depart from me ye that work iniq- 
uity." 

Balaam and Saul may be quoted as 
instances illustrating the fact that men 
may receive the gift of prophecy without 
moral transformation. The preaching of 
bad men has been the instrument in the 
regeneration of men, because God puts 
honor upon His own truth. So cures 
were wrought by Judas, not on the ground 
of his moral worthiness, but because of 
the name of Jesus Christ, the omnipotent 
Son of God. See Matt, x : 1,4. 

In the year 1875 or '76, I was present 
at a camp-meeting at Sea Cliff. While 



6o 

upon the platform during prayer-meeting, 
a man broke out in prayer and he seemed 
to get hold of God with a mighty grip. 
I lifted my head to look down and see 
who it was, for he was almost directly 
beneath the place where I was kneeling. 
I saw a man standing and holding on to 
the ' back of the seat. I thought it very 
singular that a Methodist minister should 
be praying on his feet, and I turned to a 
Quaker preacher at my side, and I said 
"Who is that man praying a Methodist 
prayer in a Presbyterian posture ? " " The 
Rev. Mr. Piatt. He stands because he 
cannot kneel ; he is a lame man." He 
was walking about there with two canes 
on Monday morning when I left the 
camp-meeting. 

At the same time there was a woman 
on the ground who was sick, lying in a 
tent (I got this from the woman herself), 
who was appealed to by a young lady 



6i 

who said, " I wish you would remember 
the case of Mr. Piatt and pray for his 
healing." 

" Who is Mr. Piatt ? " inquired the sick 
lady, " I have never heard of him." 

" He is a Methodist clergyman who is 
here on the ground and is very lame. I 
think it may possibly be the Lord's will 
that he should be healed." 

This woman says that she turned her 
heart to the Lord in prayer, and had an 
answer immediately that the Lord had 
something for her to do in the case. As 
her tent was run upon largely by callers 

Dr. W said, " I will give you a room 

in my cottage where you can keep all 
callers off and get some rest." 

She went to his cottage and slept sev- 
eral hours. While sitting at the tea-table 
all of a sudden she said, " I came near 
forgetting Mr. Piatt. I told the Lord I 
would attend to his case." 



62 

She arose from the table and requested 
some one to go with her to Mr. Piatt, 
whom she did not know. She went, ac- 
companied by some of her friends, to him. 
On the way she says she thought it might 
be a simple test of faith and was not at 
all sure that anything extraordinary 
would be done in his behalf. 

They went to Mr. Piatt's cottage. He 
came to the door leaning on his cane. 
She asked him if he did'nt think the 
Lord would cure his lameness by faith. 
He said that he had made it a subject of 
prayer, had been to Boston and seen Dr. 
Cullis who had anointed him and prayed 
for his healing. He was better for a 
day or two, and walked without crutches, 
but he had obtained no permanent relief, 
and he had about concluded that it was 
the Lord's will that he should limp along 
to his grave. This lady began to quote 
some passages of Scripture, asked him 



€■3 

if he would hold his mind so far as pos- 
sible from the attitude of resistance, and 
requested that he would be willing at 
least that she should kneel down before 
him and pray. 

"Well," said he, "you may pray for 
my left leg that was hurt quite recently, 
but my right leg has been lame for 
twenty-five years and I don't think it will 
do any good to pray for it. (Laughter.) 

That was his manner of looking upon 
the subject when the woman knelt before 
him. Before kneeling, she requested the 
privilege of slightly touching the tips of 
her fingers to his knee. 

She says, "When I knelt before the 
man, before I had uttered a word, God 
gave the whole case into my hands, and 
I knew absolutely that he was to be 
healed." 

She prayed but a few words, just touched 
her fingers to his knees, and arose. I 



6 4 

have brother Piatt's statement here, en- 
titled " Twenty-fifth Year of Jubilee." As 
far as I remember his statement of the 
matter, soon after her prayer he felt a thrill 
pass through his knees, was able to rise and 
walk about. He has kept walking with- 
out his canes ever since, and avers that 
he was instantaneously healed. 

In this instance we have the gift of 
faith exercised, and the woman knowing 
absolutely before she uttered a word, what 
would be done. I have conversed with 
Mr. Piatt: I saw him at Round Lake 
camp-meeting a year or two after his cure, 
and I have conversed with his wife, and 
they verify this statement made by this 
woman. 

Some time after this, the lady, the instru- 
ment of his healing, who was keeping up a 
correspondence with Mr. Piatt, began to 
suspect that he was yielding his belief that 
it was a supernatural cure, or as she ex- 



65 

presses it, he was "getting under the 
influence of popular opinion around him 
and ascribing it to other causes." She 
thought to herself, if this man loses his 
faith in God his lameness will return. 
She says, " I went to God and I told him 
that this cure had been published broad- 
cast throughout the world, and if it now 
becomes a failure the honor of His cause 
would be brought into reproach. I said, 
" O God, whatever else happens to this 
man, save his legs." She heard soon 
after that he had temporarily ceased 
preaching, — had stopped on account of 
weakness of the lungs. 

I think about the same year, on a tour 
of camp-meetings, I visited a camp-meet- 
ing in Mansfield, Ohio, and I saw there 
a woman who had been for some fifteen 
years sick with a diseased spine, a ner- 
vously-shattered leg, and a complication 
of diseases peculiar to her sex. She was 



66 

on a cot on wheels. I was invited into 
her tent to pray for her healing. I had 
no special gift of faith, but I pray for 
anybody as I am requested to, and pray- 
ed, " O Lord, if it be Thy will, heal this 
woman," exercising what grace of faith I 
had. 

She was not healed, and a company 
of injudicious women got around her and 
began to upbraid her and taunt her with 
unbelief. I quote from her book here : 
" I have had some peculiar experiences, 
but with all that was said I could not take 
hold with them. One brother severely 
censured me for what he called my un- 
belief. Said there was no need of my 
suffering any longer if I had faith to 
be healed." I presume this state of 
things went on for some time after this. 
I was called to preach afterwards and 
took special pains to speak upon the gift 
and the grace of faith, and that woman, 



6 7 

Jennie Smith, was lying within six feet of 
me looking up patiently, and was much 
comforted by my vindication, in which I 
asserted that her continued prostration 
and suffering were not because of un- 
belief on her part. The Lord was then 
using her as a kind of evangelist. She 
had been preaching from her cot, in 
evangelistic services and holding meet- 
ings for the benefit of the railroad men 
in whom she was much interested, as she 
was obliged to travel in the baggage 
car. 

I said that when the Lord had fully 
demonstrated what he could do with a 
sick girl, evangelizing, saving souls, and 
establishing Christian reading rooms for 
the railroad men, it might please Him in 
His own good time to give her the gift 
of faith for complete healing after He 
had magnified His strength in her weak- 
ness. The year after that this woman 



68 

was instantaneously healed through faith 
in Christ, the Jehovah Rophi of the Old 
Testament. She thinks she was kept from 
being healed in early life because the 
Lord wanted that she should go through 
all the schools of medicine on earth and 
show the inability of any one of them to 
heal her. So she went through the water 
cures and through the fire cures, having 
her spine cauterized with hot irons, 
through electricity, through allopathy 
and hydropathy and at last was taken 
to a homeopathic hospital in Philadel- 
phia. She stayed out her time there but 
did not get relief. 

I want to give you an idea of the con- 
dition of her body. One of her limbs 
had to be put into a box and a stone 
tied to the box, as she had no control 
over the limb ; in the spasms of pain 
which she suffered, having no possible 
control over it, a piece of marble of fifty 



6 9 

pounds weight was put upon it, while the 
box was fastened with hooks to her couch 
but the first paroxysm tore away the 
hooks. At last a surgical operation was 
performed severing (as" I infer from the 
account) the motor nerve of the leg over 
which she had no control, so that the 
spasms ceased and it became like a 
dead limb lying on her couch. Her vo 
litions could no more move it than they 
could the solid earth. 

This was her condition when the med- 
ical authorities came to the conclusion 
that her case was incurable. Looking 
around for some place to go, and having 
stayed out her term there, having heard 
through some friends the particulars of 
Mr. Piatt's healing, it first dawned upon 
her mind that she might be healed. 

She says, " While the same woman 
that had been instrumental in his cure 
was leading in prayer, I found the first 



7 o 

glimmer of hope and thought that God 
might restore me." This faith constantly 
increased until she finally sent out writ- 
ten invitations to her friends appointing 
an hour when the matter was to be tested. 
Her physician, Dr. Morgan, a man with 
whom I am acquainted, who has visited 
at my house, was present. He said he 
would pray with her all night. The 
prayers began about eight o'clock and 
they continued to wait before the Lord. 
Occasionally some one would quote a 
text of Scripture or engage in prayer. 
She still lay suffering, but most of the 
time in such communion with God that 
she was hardly conscious of the pain. 

About eleven o'clock she broke forth 
in audible prayer, saying, " I give my body 
to thee anew ; my eyes to see, my lips to 
talk, my ears to hear, and, if it be Thy 
will, these feet to walk. All of me, all, 
all of this body, dear Father, only let Thy 
precious will be done." 



7 1 

Weaker than usual, after a brief silence 
there suddenly flashed upon her a most 
vivid vision of the healing of the withered 
arm ; at the same instant there came to 
her faith to receive a greater blessing. 
It seemed as though heaven was opened 
and she was conscious of a baptism of 
strength, as conscious as if an electric 
shock had come into her system. She felt 
strength come into her back, she raised 
herself to a sitting posture, arose, and 
stood. Her sister almost fainted, having 
never seen her before upon her feet. 
And she walks to-day and has spoken 
from this platform. 

As a confirmation of this account of a 
faith cure, we quote the following col- 
loquy between Jennie Smith and an 
infidel, old-school physician who had 
vainly tried his skill upon her. 

Infidel doctor. " Jennie, I hear that the 
homeopaths are claiming your cure." 



72 

Jennie. " I was in a homeopathic hos- 
pital, but I was healed by God in answer 
to the prayer of faith." 

Infidel doctor. "Yes, yes, it was God, 
it was God ; homeopathy had nothing to 
do with it." 

It is much easier to believe that God 
revealed His mighty arm in these cures 
than to be so credulous as to ascribe them 
to natural causes, the magnetism of a 
hand, or the power of the will, or the ■ 
influence of imagination. None are so 
credulous as those who are determined 
to crowd God out of the universe. 

At' the same camp-meeting where I 
found Jennie Smith, my attention was 
called to a woman who was walking 
about there, Mrs. Burrezz. I was asked 
to go and have some conversation with 
her. I went and learned these facts: 
she was a resident of Mansfield, Ohio. 
She had been for seven years a hopeless 



73 

invalid. One of her lungs was unsound ; 
the other very much diseased. She had 
been for years confined to her couch 
and was considered an incurable con- 
sumptive. 

After reading instances of faith heal- 
ing, she thought that she might be cured. 
A man came and prayed with her with 
no special result After a while, on 
thinking the matter over, she said the 
Lord Jesus seemed to stand before her 
and bid her touch the hem of His garment. 
She reached out her hand as if a person 
stood there, and in the act of reaching out 
her hand she was healed. 

These are instances which have come 
under my personal observation. I have 
bought few books on faith healing and 
faith cures. Some twenty years ago I 
read Dr. BushnelPs " Nature and the 
Supernatural," and came to the conclusion 
that God had not withdrawn the gifts of 



74 

His Spirit, and that supernatural powers 
would be manifested until the Lord Jesus 
came again. 

The cures wrought by God through 
the prayers and anointing of Dr. Cullis 
are all about us. I have conversed with 
several of the persons cured, and have 
found them to be genuine and well-attest- 
ed cases of instantaneous healing. One 
is that of a curved and diseased spine ; 
another, a lady in Holliston, Mrs. Bemis, 
of the M. E. Church, was relieved of a 
complication of diseases ; and still an- 
other, the wife of a Methodist preacher 
of the New England Conference, now in 
California, was healed of a painful uterine 
weakness and displacement which had 
tortured her from childhood. That all 
who come to Dr. C. are not healed is ad- 
mitted. St. Paul did not heal every sick 
person, as we have seen in the case of 
Trophinus. St. Paul speaks of " gifts of 



75 

healing," "the plural pointing," says 
Meyer, "to the different kinds of sick- 
ness, for the healing of which different 
gifts were needful." As there are men 
endowed by nature with the ability to 
treat special diseases successfully, so 
there may be specialties in supernatural 
healing. 

In conclusion let me say that the need 
of a special gift of faith for healing is 
evident when we consider two facts : 

i . That every exercise of faith must be 
under the primal curse, pronounced out- 
side the gates of a lost Eden, (i Dust thou 
art and unto dust thou shalt return." 
Hence there must be a special revelation 
that the sickness is not unto death, and 
that it is the will of God to heal before 
there can be unwavering faith in behalf 
of any given case. 

2. Every exercise of faith for healing 
is for a person in probation, in whom it 



7 6 

may be the Divine purpose to bring forth 
for the beautifying of the moral character 
the grace of submission to the Divine 
Will. No one but God knows how hot 
or how long the furnace is to be heated. 
None but He knows the hour of deliver- 
ance. When the sufferer, or any other 
person, has a divinely-inspired intimation 
that that hour has come he can exercise 
unwavering faith for his cure. 



HEALING BY FAITH. 

TWO ESSAYS 




MUEL L. GRACEY 



IEL STEELE, D.D. 



Delivered before the Boston Methodist Preachers' Meeting 
March 27th and April 3d, 1882. 



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